


Glimpses

by loversandmadmen



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Deaf Clint Barton, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-21 12:06:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 15,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2467718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loversandmadmen/pseuds/loversandmadmen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their relationship could never be typical. Their lives could never be calm. In the midst of all the chaos of missions, undercover identities, and the occasional saving of the world, what mattered most were the little glimpses into each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You know, Clint’s hands may look hard and tired, but I have only ever known them as soft and warm.

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired by two beautiful posts by lettiebobettie on Tumblr and coudn't resist writing something based on them!
> 
> There is a playlist to go along with this fic, with a song for each chapter. It can be found here: http://8tracks.com/cbartonrun/glimpses
> 
> The art used for the playlist is one of the gorgeous pieces that inspired this fic, and it belongs to lettiebobettie.

The first time Natasha felt Clint’s hands was in Minsk. 

She had received orders to quietly execute an American diplomat. She didn’t know much about him beyond his appearance, agenda, and most basic information. He was a family man, early to rest and early to rise most of the time, but he was also proud of his tourism method. Natasha learned that he was fond of taking strolls through quiet little neighborhoods wherever he was sent. He was one of _those_. One of the types who thought the only way to really know a destination was to act like a local, to eat at the little hole-in-the-wall places that only served Grandmother’s traditional favorites, to return home with some garment or bit of home décor that really showed the true flavor of the place. 

Pretentious. That was the word for it. 

Natasha waited patiently that evening, taking her time as she walked down the quiet street. She wore her hair tucked under a thick wool hat and kept her hands tucked into the pockets of her brown coat. She looked entirely boring, as plain and unremarkable as the stone street. No one looking at her would think she had a gun and plans to use it. 

At exactly 9:08 PM, the diplomat appeared. Natasha began to walk toward him, gripping her gun a little tighter, ready to pull the trigger and continue walking without so much as a flinch, just as she had done so many times before. She drew closer, closer, closer, until she could almost see the whites of his eyes – 

“Patrick! Wait up!”

The sound of a woman’s voice threw Natasha off slightly, and she glanced past her mark to see a woman hurrying to meet up with him. She carried a little girl, no more than three years old, impeccably and adorably dressed in a pink pea coat, a cherub with rosy cheeks. His wife and child, Natasha realized, her heart stopping. This was not in the plan. They were not supposed to be here. When had their plans changed? 

Never mind that. She had her orders. She moved her gun a fraction of an inch in her pocket, ready to take the shot – 

And then the little girl laughed. And Natasha couldn’t do it. She couldn’t shoot this man in front of his child, nor could she eliminate the child for the crime of being a witness to her father’s death. She released her grip on her gun and walked quickly, walked past the happy family just as her target gave his child a kiss on the cheek. The little girl’s happy giggle echoed as Natasha raced around the corner. 

She had failed her mission. She would pay for this. Punishment would come swiftly and consume her for an age. She leaned against a brick wall, warring with herself. She could go back and finish the job, try to just take out the diplomat without being seen by his wife and daughter, but the chance of not being witnessed was too slim. 

Before she could take so much as a step, she became aware of a presence to her left. She snapped into action, but every attempt at a blow was expertly blocked. The man she fought was a full head taller than her and much broader, and he could probably have taken her out easily through brute force, but he didn’t seem to want to hurt her. Natasha was quick and lithe, graceful as a dancer, but the man finally managed to pin her against the wall. He pressed a hand over her mouth, and it was only then that Natasha saw the urgency in his bright blue eyes. He actually shushed her, shushed her like a schoolchild, and it was only when Natasha gave him the tiniest nod that he moved his hand away. 

They stared at each other for a long, terrible moment. Natasha briefly considered that the desperate, almost frightened look on the man’s face could just be a ploy to distract her long enough to kill her, but no – she knew how to read people well enough to see the earnestness in his face. He looked around to be sure they were alone, then reached down and grabbed her hand. He actually grabbed her hand, tugging her along at breakneck speed down alleys and side streets, not letting go until they reached an inconspicuous doorway. He swiped a card at a hidden scanner to unlock it, then pushed Natasha inside and locked the door. 

“Who the _hell_ are you?” Natasha snapped as the man checked the windows to be sure they weren’t followed. “I followed you this far, not that you gave me much choice. You owe me a name.”

“Barton,” said the man. “Agent Barton. I’m with SHIELD.”

Natasha snorted. Of course he was. Now she saw the faint emblem on his shoulder, now she noticed the weapon he carried – a bow and arrow. How oddly old-fashioned. And this was a trick, and he was going to try to get information out of her by pretending to be on her side, and then he was going to torture and kill her when she refused. It wouldn’t be the first time she had found herself in this position. Before she could berate herself for not seeing this obvious trap sooner, for not being able to tell that the man’s sincere face had all been an act, he was back in front of her, eyeing her with what looked like concern. 

“You’ve got a bad cut there. My fault,” he said, pointing to her cheek. “Come here. I have a first aid kit.”

Barton led Natasha to a table in the tiny kitchen and flipped on a fluorescent light. Natasha sat, waiting for the catch. Maybe the “first aid kit” was really full of hypodermic needles, loaded with some kind of drug to knock her out. Maybe he was just going to shoot her right there without asking questions. She braced herself as Barton opened the little tin kit and pulled out…rubbing alcohol and cotton. 

“This is going to sting. Sorry,” said Barton, and Natasha was struck by the gentleness in his tone. 

She allowed Barton to clean the cut, but didn’t allow herself to wince at the sharp sting or smell of alcohol. While Barton cleaned the abrasion with his right hand, his left held Natasha’s chin steady with the lightest possible touch. Barton applied a couple of butterfly closures to the cut and declared her as good as new. 

“It’s not as bad as I thought,” he said as he put away the first aid kit. “Shouldn’t even leave a mark, I don’t think.”

“You can drop the act,” said Natasha. “It’s not going to get you anywhere.”

“I’m not…”

He trailed off, seeming to realize that protests would fall on deaf ears. He dropped his head for a moment, an odd gesture, then reached up and pulled his woolen hat off of his head to reveal messy blond hair. He showed the hat to Natasha. 

“Nothing in the hat,” he said. 

He took off his jacket, turned out his pockets, and even shook out his shoes, all to show Natasha that with his bow in the far corner of the room, he was utterly unarmed. 

“You can pat me down if you want, I wouldn’t be offended,” said Barton, daring to be cheeky. Natasha’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Didn’t think so.”

“Just tell me what you want,” said Natasha. 

Her patience was fading fast, sped along with the sick feeling in her stomach at the thought of what would happen to her if her failure were discovered. Barton redressed as he spoke. 

“I was sent here to take you out,” he said simply. “I think that would be a serious waste of talent. I know a little about you. You’re good at what you do. You’re quick, you’re focused, and you don’t miss. Those are all things I value.”

“You want me to come work for SHIELD,” said Natasha, unable to mask the derision in her voice. 

Barton shrugged. “I think you could at least consider it. Your mission was to take out Patrick Ward. You didn’t, and you didn’t by choice. I saw the whole thing. I can’t imagine that’s going to go over well with your bosses. Come with me and we can protect you.”

“Defect, you mean.”

“Yes.”

Well, he was certainly direct. Natasha would give him that. And given the circumstances, he was probably right. But give up everything she knows? Make that decision right now, in an instant, in some dingy little safe house in Belarus where an overgrown American archer stood with his eyebrows raised, waiting for an answer? It was unthinkable, in the strictest sense of the word – Natasha simply could not think. Perhaps he sensed her distress, because Barton’s body language relaxed a little and he reached into the tiny refrigerator for a bottle of water. Natasha took it gratefully and drank for a long moment, briefly considering that it could be poisoned but deciding that at this point, it wouldn’t really matter. Her web had been severed. 

Natasha locked her eyes onto Barton’s and gave a small, solitary nod. The archer’s face broke into a little half-smile, and he suddenly looked boyish and sweet in a way that contradicted the powerful, professional build. He stepped forward and held out a hand to Natasha. She took it, standing as she did, and they shook. Barton’s hand was large enough to engulf hers, and despite a few callouses from using his bow and cracked, dry skin from the chill, he felt welcoming and warm in the cold air. He patted Natasha’s shoulder softly with his free hand. 

“You can call me Clint.”


	2. You know, Nat has naturally red hair.

Natasha didn’t speak much for those first few hours. Clint hadn’t expected her to be a chatterbox or anything, but her stony silence concerned him. He had contacted SHIELD and requested an extraction “plus one”, which he thought was kind of funny but no one else did. Clint wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the higher-ups. This was a big risk he was taking, but he found he couldn’t help himself. In reading Natasha’s file, in studying her, he had become fascinated with her incredible skills and track record. She had earned the name “Black Widow” in the field, and she was clearly worthy of it. She moved slowly until she struck, never losing her grace, and it was impossible to deny that she was a beautiful woman. Yes, if anyone could live up to the name Black Widow, it would be Natasha. She could be a real asset to SHIELD.

The tiny safe house remained cold, despite Clint’s best efforts to warm it up while they awaited further instructions. He didn’t have much to offer, just some tea and blankets. Natasha sat with a blanket draped around her shoulders, staring into her mug for a long time before Clint finally spoke up. 

“I know this is hard,” he said lamely. 

Natasha pulled a face and Clint regretted saying anything. This wasn’t really Clint’s strong suit, sitting here with a person in clear distress, however well she hid it. Clint was a warm enough person in general, but still. Comfort wasn’t really his thing. 

As he sat there trying to come up with something to say, Natasha reached up and pulled off her hat, shaking her long, red hair with her hands. Clint was momentarily mesmerized by this – he had never seen such vibrant hair in real life. He had seen the pictures, of course, but the photos didn’t really do justice to the color. When he had been studying Natasha’s file, he had initially shaken his head at the notion of someone who was supposed to fly under the radar coloring their hair such a rare color, and not even a subtle shade of it. Now that he got a good look at her in person, however, he could tell it wasn’t a dye. Not wanting to make Natasha uncomfortable by staring, Clint stood up and pretended to be busy with the sink. 

“Do you need anything?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder. Natasha shook her head. “Shouldn’t be long now.”

And he was right. Barely ten more minutes passed before Clint got the call with their instructions and motioned to Natasha to follow him. She stood and hesitated for only a moment before steeling herself and following Clint out the door and toward the waiting SHIELD car. He opened the door for her, allowing her to slide in first. The agent doing the driving glanced back at the two of them, looking at Natasha a little nervously, but Clint knew there was no reason to worry. She might not have anything to lose, but she also wouldn’t have anything to gain by attacking them. Natasha stared hard out the window until they reached the airport, where she was taken aside and thoroughly searched, then handcuffed. As the agent who did the searching escorted Natasha back to the waiting plane, he gave Clint a hard look.

“You didn’t disarm her?” he said incredulously. 

Clint just shrugged. No, he hadn’t so much as searched Natasha. She might be able to read body language and facial expressions, but he could read people. While Natasha’s talent lay in reading people’s immediate intentions, Clint’s lay in getting a read on their overall nature. He trusted her. 

Clint gestured to the handcuffs. “Are those really necessary?”

“Protocol,” said the agent shortly. 

“Right, but are they necessary?”

The agent didn’t answer. Clint supposed this was just a glimpse into the treatment he was about to face from SHIELD, but he shook it off and boarded the plane. He’d cross that bridge when he came to it. Natasha was led to a seat by a window, and Clint took the one next to her. He normally favored window seats himself, but he thought Natasha might appreciate a view. 

They sat in solemn silence for a long time. Clint actually nodded off for a bit, leaning back in his seat with his arms crossed over his chest. He wasn’t sure how long he slept, but when he came to, Natasha looked over at him. 

“What is waiting for me at SHIELD?” she asked quietly. 

“Honestly? I’m not sure,” said Clint. “I’d like to think they’ll trust my judgment.”

“And if they don’t?”

They locked eyes for a long moment. Clint didn’t want to tell her outright that if SHIELD didn’t take him at his word or agree with his decision to spare her, she would face one of the most secure prisons on the planet. But as he looked at her, he could tell that she knew the answer. She just wanted him to say it. 

“It would still be better than whatever your employers have in mind,” he said finally, unable to maintain eye contact as he said it. 

Natasha nodded and resumed staring out the window. Clint gave her a minute, then leaned in to speak quietly. 

“I’m on your side here, so you’ve got me in your corner, at least. I’m not saying that means a lot, but it means something. I’ll fight for you, okay?”

Natasha did not look at him, but instead just shook her brilliant red hair to clear it away from her face. Clint watched as it caught the artificial light of the plane’s overhead lamps. He took a deep breath and decided that he should say exactly what was on his mind. 

“Listen,” he continued. “A while back, I was in a bad way. Getting into trouble. Serious trouble. I was headed down the kind of path that puts you away for life, and it was just a matter of time until I wound up in prison for good. But someone saw that I might be useful, so they brought me in instead of locking me up. I fought it. I fought it hard. But in the end, I realized that I had a chance to do some good and get on the right road, you know? I had a chance to make up for all the mistakes and all the misery I had been causing. And I don’t regret it for a second. You might find that you feel the same way, given some time. This doesn’t just have to be an escape hatch for you. This could be a fresh start. Wipe the slate clean. Start over. All that good stuff.”

Finally, Natasha looked over and met Clint’s eyes. A lock of her hair fell back over her face. 

“Do you want me to…” Clint pointed to the lock of hair as his way of offering to tuck it back for her. She allowed it. “Better?”

Natasha nodded, and the ghost of a tiny smile flitted across her lips before she turned back to the window.


	3. And he seems to like to fall asleep on his stomach.

Natasha hadn’t slept. Her throat felt raw and swollen, and it seemed that she could never quite breathe deeply enough to satisfy her need for oxygen. She felt entirely ill, and yet she could not bring herself to sleep when the opportunity finally arose. Not when Clint was in such a bad way.   
Though they had succeeded in their mission to rescue a small group of hostages, Clint had endured the worst injuries of them all. Natasha had managed to get the hostages to safety with only minor wounds, but Clint had been caught and beaten badly by several men before getting away. He wasn’t seriously hurt, but he was in a lot of pain, even if he wouldn’t admit it to Natasha. 

They had made it back to their safe house late that night, and Natasha had insisted that Clint take some painkillers and go to bed immediately. He would have protested if anyone but her had suggested it. Natasha had given him some vodka to wash down the pills, and he had stripped down to his underwear before passing out cold in the narrow bed. Natasha kept watch, seeing deep bruises sprout up as the hours went by, and she couldn’t bring herself to lie next to him and risk hurting him further. Instead, she had taken off her tactical uniform and put on the discarded t-shirt of Clint’s, not caring that it had gunpowder and bow oil and blood on it. It felt familiar and warm, just as he always did. 

She sat in a wooden chair by the bed and stared out the tiny, high window at the moonlight. Clint slept on his stomach, the way he almost always did, breathing deeply and steadily. He looked so peaceful. Of the two of them, Clint slept more soundly, but he usually still had the awareness that came with the life of a spy. He might wake a half-second after Natasha, but he would wake as alert and ready to pounce as she would. Natasha moved slowly, silently, cautiously over to the bed and sat in the crook of Clint’s legs. He stirred only slightly, settling after Natasha lay a gentle hand on his back. It wasn’t as though either of them were any stranger to a good beating, but it was still hard to look at the marks from boots, butts of guns, and fists that decorated Clint’s body. 

Clint stretched out, then groaned in pain. “Natasha?”

“I’m here,” said Natasha. “What do you need?”

Clint shook his head. 

“Water?” Natasha pressed him. 

“No, nothing,” said Clint. “Just wanted to know where you were.”

Clint slowly pushed himself up, his face screwed up against the aches in his muscles and bones. Natasha sighed, knowing he would insist on toughing out the worst of it, and went over to the little kitchenette to make some tea. When she pressed a warm mug into Clint’s hands, he breathed the steam as though it would give him new life. Natasha brought a cold, wet cloth over and laid it on the back of Clint’s neck. He shuddered a little, then closed his eyes and breathed a relieved sigh. 

“How are you feeling?” asked Natasha, knowing the true answer. 

“Fine,” lied Clint. “Sore. But it’s not bad. Give me a week and I’ll be back to flattening you in the training room.”

“It’s cute how you think you could take me out.”

“Hey, I got close that one time.”

“Yes. One time.”

Clint threw her a look, and despite herself, Natasha laughed a little. As she did, it hit her just how exhausted she really was. She needed to sleep. Clint seemed to notice her fatigue, because he reached out and tugged on her shoulder to guide her to the bed. 

“Here,” he said, handing her one of the thin pillows. “Take a load off.”

Natasha arranged the pillow so that she could lean against the wall comfortably, but did not allow herself to close her eyes. Clint sipped at his tea for a moment, not looking at her, then suddenly seemed to realize that she wasn’t sleeping. The way his awareness worked was fascinating to Natasha – he seemed to zone out a lot, but in reality, he was taking stock of everything around him. He could look a million miles away but be calculating every possible scenario to within an inch of its potential occurrence. She supposed that was part of why his code name was “Hawkeye”. Sure, it referred to his incredible eyesight and aim, but it also suited his nature so well. His patience and observation were unmatched. 

“You need to rest,” he said. “You look so tired.”

“I’m fine,” said Natasha. 

“No. Here.”

Clint moved so that Natasha had room to lie down, and he winced as he did it. Natasha hated that she was so drawn to the idea of lying down, that her body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, like the bed was a magnet drawing her toward a heavy sleep she had not earned. She couldn’t help lying down, though, her body was so far past the breaking point. She lay down behind Clint, and he turned so that he could prop up against the headboard. He placed his hand upon her head. 

“Try to sleep,” he whispered. “I’ll be okay. You’ve done more than enough, Nat.”

Natasha barely registered his words or the warm touch of his hand before she fell into a deep sleep.


	4. And she likes the snow, but she loves the rain.

Minneapolis, of all places. A place made up of almost aggressively nice people was somehow also the host of HQ for a particularly nasty bunch of criminals. If they had thought that hiding out among the good folks of Minnesota would make them harder to find…well, they were right, at least at first. But SHIELD had caught on, as it always did, and Clint and Natasha were shipped out at once to go take care of business. 

On the plane, Natasha was quiet. She sat by the window, gazing out thoughtfully, the pale light reflected in her bright eyes. Clint left her to her thoughts for the most part, reading and rereading their briefing, memorizing every detail about these lowlifes. A sudden little sound from Natasha snapped Clint out of his reading haze.

“Hmm,” she said quietly, a little smile on her face as she looked at her phone.

“What?” asked Clint. 

“It’s supposed to snow while we’re there,” said Natasha. 

“Yeah, well, not surprising,” Clint grumbled. “It’s the Midwest. That’s what it does.”

“You don’t like snow?”

“I can take it or leave it.”

“I like it.”

That was one of the things about Natasha that was simultaneously fascinating and frustrating – she never wanted anyone to know too much about her. It was her way of defending herself in advance from anyone who might want to exploit a weakness, however mundane it may seem. This little bit of information, willingly given, was a gift that Clint would lock away for safekeeping. Natasha liked snow. 

“Surprising that you like snow. I would have thought you’d had more than enough of that, given where you grew up,” said Clint. 

“Too much of a good thing can be very nice sometimes,” said Natasha, a little purr in her voice. 

Sometimes, Natasha could make Clint feel like a gawky schoolboy, and this was one of those times. It took everything in him not to blush. He managed to keep control and just smiled in response. 

“Well, I’m an Iowa boy myself. I’ve seen more than enough snow to last a lifetime,” he said. 

Clint crossed his arms and leaned back, trying to catch a quick nap before they landed. The gentle hum of the airplane and his awareness that Natasha sat right next to him soothed him into a calm rest for a short time, until Natasha nudged him awake to tell him to fasten his seatbelt for the landing. Clint was still a little bleary-eyed as they walked off the plane, and he barely noticed where he was until some precipitation hit him in the face. Freezing-cold rain. Great. 

“Aww, come on…” Clint grumbled, turning up his collar against the rain. 

He turned to look at Natasha as she walked down the stairs and was surprised to see that she was smiling widely, a picture of serenity as she turned her face up to the sky, eyes closed in an expression of utter peace and happiness. She looked more relaxed than Clint had ever seen her, and the look of joy on her face was contagious. Despite himself, Clint couldn’t help smiling as well. Natasha opened her eyes and caught Clint’s eye, holding his gaze for a moment. She looked away, a little embarrassed. Clint waited for her to catch up and gave her a little nudge with his elbow. 

“Sorry,” she said, hiding a little grin. “I just love the rain.”

“More than the snow?”

The raise of Natasha’s eyebrows confirmed this fact, and Clint added this to the very short list of things he knew for sure about her.


	5. And he has this ridiculous habit of stopping for coffee everywhere we go.

They could certainly be assigned to a worse place than Paris, but today, something felt off about it all. Natasha usually loved Paris. Something about being surrounded by so much history and art reminded Natasha of her imaginary life as a ballerina with the Bolshoi. Had she actually been a dancer like she once believed she was, she might have ended up here under very different circumstances. She would have been one of those young, pretty, slightly naïve girls of the company, well disciplined and usually obeying the strict rules of the tour, but probably sneaking out with the other girls to flirt with a Parisian boy or two. She would have gone running through the streets to make it back before curfew, laughing wildly with her friends, red hair flying behind her, free from its tight ballet bun for once. She would have been a child in many ways. 

And yet, here Natasha was, sitting in a little café in Paris, as far from childlike as one can get. She stared out the window, watching the trails of rain drizzle down the glass, wondering why she felt such an odd sense of melancholy today. She had left their little hotel room while Clint was still sleeping, wanting to enjoy walking the streets in the rain for a bit, knowing he would find her easily enough once he came to. Sure enough, a little flash of blond across the street alerted Natasha to Clint’s presence. She waved through the window as he approached the café. When he sat across from her, he flashed a wide grin that she would normally return – she could never help smiling when his was so genuine – but today, she just nodded. 

“Need some coffee?” asked Natasha. 

“Already had a cup, actually, but yeah. Sounds good,” said Clint as he unbuttoned a long black coat and shed the layer. 

Natasha ordered two cups of coffee in perfect French, which only widened Clint’s smile. He loved when she spoke French, mainly because his own was terrible. Clint could speak a few other languages passably, but he had some kind of mental block about French that made Natasha laugh until her stomach hurt. He would go from a smooth-voiced Midwesterner to a ridiculous caricature in the space of a few francophone syllables, and for some reason, he could never get a handle on it. 

“Oh, _aussi un croissant?_ ” said Clint to the waiter, cringing at his own pronunciation apologetically. He looked to Natasha for her reaction, but it was just a little polite smile. “Okay, Nat. What’s going on?”

Natasha shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you. Just one of those days, I suppose.”

“Well, can I do anything?”

“No. I’m fine.”

“Okay. But if you change your mind…”

Natasha nodded appreciatively. Their coffee arrived and they drank it quietly together for a moment, Clint savoring it a little more than Natasha. She had grown up drinking European coffee, so it was nothing new or special to her, but for Clint, it was a real treat. He was the kind of guy who would drink instant coffee without thinking twice about it, but he could appreciate the good stuff when he had it.

“You know, I’m telling you, I could live here,” said Clint. “I mean, they’d probably kick me out once they get tired of the Jacques Clouseau accent and realize I don’t know Monet from Manet, but hey. I could make a good run of it for a while, at least.”

“You don’t really strike me as the ‘strolling along the boulevards’ kind of man,” said Natasha. 

“I’m just full of surprises, _ma cherie_ ,” said Clint, pronouncing it like “sherry” and causing Natasha to crack a little half-smile. “There it is. I knew my French was still just hilarious to you.”

“Always.”

“Listen, after we’re done here, let’s take a walk. Let’s go to some museum where I don’t recognize a single painting and you can translate everything and help me get some culture. How’s that sound?”

“That sounds lovely,” said Natasha. 

They finished their coffee in silence, then donned raincoats and went out into the cool mist. Neither had thought to bring an umbrella, so they stuck close to the awnings of the shops and cafes to avoid the worst of it. They fell into step with each other, both lost in their own thoughts. It wasn’t until Natasha went to cross the street and Clint grabbed at her arm to warn her about an approaching car that she was jerked from her reverie. 

_A flash of red. A deathly tight grip. The sound of a shot and a scream._

Natasha gasped, stumbling back from Clint, her composure completely gone. Clint looked alarmed and reached out to her, putting his hands on her shoulders. The weight of his touch brought Natasha back as she gasped, trying to slow her heartbeat. Clint looked around for somewhere to sit and located a stoop, then guided Natasha onto the cold steps. He knelt in front of her, doing a rudimentary check of her physical state. 

“It’s okay, Natasha. Nat. Hey. Look at me. It’s okay. You’re fine. You’re safe,” Clint said, snapping his fingers to get Natasha to make eye contact. “Just take a second. Breathe.”

“I’m sorry,” Natasha managed to say. 

Clint shook his head. “No, don’t apologize. It’s okay. What happened?”

“I was…”

Natasha trailed off as her breath caught again in the chilly wind. Clint whipped his coat off and draped it over her shoulders in one fluid motion, then rubbed her arms to warm her a bit. Natasha felt her panic slowly subsiding as she closed her eyes against this gesture. 

“Take your time,” Clint murmured. 

“I was here before. This neighborhood. I was here, and I think…I think I shot someone here.”

“You think?”

“I don’t know. It was…Clint, when you met me, I had been working with people who could erase things. They could make it so we would do things and never remember, never be able to tell anyone what we had done. It kept them entirely unaccountable. I think I killed someone just a block or so away. It feels familiar and I think that’s why. Sometimes, memories, they…sometimes they stay. I think, if I remember it, it was an early hit. I would have been young.”

Clint stayed very still and quiet while Natasha talked, careful to keep his face expressionless and free of anything resembling judgment. Natasha knew he would never think ill of her for anything she had done before they met. Still, though, the longer she spent in his company, the harder it became to talk about or even think about those things. She remembered bits and pieces, only the parts that were useful to other assignments or the things that the inexact science could not scrub away. 

“How old were you?” asked Clint. 

“I don’t know. Thirteen, maybe? Fourteen?”

Clint’s eyes went a little wider at this, but he gained control of himself quickly. He tightened his grip on Natasha a little, and once she had calmed enough to walk again, he helped her up. She returned his coat, then took the arm he crooked out to her. Clint led them in a different direction as they walked, away from the repressed memories and away from Natasha’s bloody past. They walked arm-in-arm for a long time, occasionally glancing at each other to check in. Natasha felt safe with Clint. He was so steady and constant, like a favorite sweater or the smell of home. 

“Let’s stop in here for a minute,” said Clint after an hour or so of this, and he pointed to yet another café. “We can get some coffee.”

“You’re going to turn into a cup of coffee at the rate you’re going,” said Natasha. 

“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Clint muttered, amused. 

He started to reach for the door of the café, but Natasha tugged him back to her. Concerned, he frowned a little and waited for her to tell him what was wrong. But nothing was wrong, not anymore. Before she could rationalize it or talk herself out of it, Natasha leaned into Clint and kissed him softly. She stayed close to him when they broke away, waiting for a reaction. He kept his eyes closed a second longer than she did, but when he opened them, they were bright and happy. He placed a gentle hand on Natasha’s cheek and let out a little laugh. 

“Kissing in Paris,” he said. “ _Cliché, n’est-ce pas?_ ”

“That sounded pretty good,” said Natasha. 

Clint grinned at her, and this time, she returned the smile in full.


	6. She likes to lay in bed on rainy mornings.

Clint groaned a little as he woke up, feeling the headache from yesterday that hadn’t quite gone away. He heard the patter of rain on the window and for a brief moment couldn’t remember where he was. It wasn’t until he had carefully rolled out of the bed so as not to wake Natasha and passed the narrow window in the hallway and saw the skyline that he remembered – London. Today was London. He hadn’t spent much time in London, but every hour he had been in the city had always included rain. It figured. Natasha was glad for it, of course, and despite his own distaste for this kind of weather, Clint liked how happy it made her. 

The kitchen had a stocked pantry and refrigerator, and yet no coffee. London was not exactly endearing itself to Clint this morning. He sighed as he poked around, locating some tea, and settled for what he considered to be a poor substitute for his favorite beverage. The flat had a narrow little terrace, so Clint stepped out on it for a bit of air, hoping it would unstuff his head a bit. The cool air felt pleasant as he sipped reluctantly at his tea for a while, gazing out over the city. It seemed like a nice enough place, or it would if he had gotten to do much more in it than complete a mission and stop in a pub here and there. He hoped he could do a little exploring this time. 

By the time he had finished his tea, his headache had disappeared, but he would be soaked if he stayed out there in the mist much longer. He stepped back inside and roughly ran his hand through his hair a few times, sending water droplets all over the place. The faint sound of music drew his attention, and he slowly walked back toward the bedroom. 

Clint peered through the crack in the door at Natasha, who lay on her stomach with a book opened in front of her, the music coming from her phone. After a moment, she looked out the window and moved the curtains a little more, then smiled at the view. Natasha and rain – it was such a natural thing. Rain was a complication, a hitch in everyday life, but it also washed away the dust and brought forth beautiful things. Natasha was the same way in Clint’s eyes. She always kept him guessing, and sometimes she was infuriatingly mysterious, and sometimes she was thrillingly passionate, and sometimes she was steady and calm, and always, always, she was Natasha. 

Before Natasha noticed Clint – well, if he was really honest with himself, she knew perfectly well that he was there and just hadn’t acknowledged him – he walked back to the kitchen and started pulling out this and that, trying to slap together some breakfast. Toast and jam, some fruit, a promising-looking cheese, and more tea seemed like it would tide them over until they could partake in some decent pub food and a pint somewhere. He attempted to make it all look attractive on a tray and carefully carried it back to the bedroom, where Natasha was now curled up on her side with several pillows stacked under her head, facing the window. 

“Morning,” said Clint. Natasha turned to face him. “Hungry?”

“You made breakfast?” said Natasha. 

“I did. No, don’t get up,” said Clint as Natasha started to get out of bed to help with the tray and plates. “I’ve got this.”

“Well, this is fancy.”

Clint shrugged. “I worked with what we had. It’s kind of…light for my taste.”

“You’ll get your full English breakfast. I promise.”

“How did you know that’s what I was aiming for?”

“You’re a man and we’re in England. It isn’t exactly hard to put two and two together.” 

Clint laughed and passed Natasha a loaded plate, then poured her some tea. She held out her cup to Clint, and they clinked them together. 

“Cheers,” said Natasha. 

They sipped their tea, and though Natasha turned to her plate, Clint found he couldn’t look away from her. She looked so relaxed and at home, with her vivid hair in a loose braid, no makeup on her face, wearing a big sweatshirt and leggings. She could have been anyone and they could have been anywhere. Natasha noticed Clint looking at her and turned her bright eyes to him curiously. Before he could stop himself, Clint spoke up. 

“I love you, you know,” he said clumsily. “I know that’s not exactly…I mean, I know it might be a little, I guess, ridiculous to say or something, because that’s not really the way we are with each other. I know that. But I just thought I might put it out there so you knew. In case you didn’t know already. I’m sure you knew. But I still wanted to say it. Please say something so I don’t keep talking. Or just knock me out. Either way is fine.”

Natasha dropped her head, her shoulders shaking with laughter. When she looked back up, she smiled at Clint. She didn’t say anything right away, nor did he expect her to, but the way the smile brightened her face told Clint all he needed to know. He reached out and took her hand, and she looked back at him from under light eyelashes. Her smile faded suddenly. 

“Too much?” asked Clint, starting to take his hand back, but Natasha stopped him.

“No, it’s…it’s just that…where I came from, this sort of thing didn’t happen.”

Of course. Natasha had told him precious little of her life before their meeting, and of course there was plenty that she couldn’t remember. What Clint could glean was that she had been little more than a deadly puppet to her bosses, to be programmed and used as they saw fit. He felt sick if he spent too much time wondering exactly what that could have meant, and he tried to push the thought back as he moved to be a little closer to Natasha on the bed. Without a word, she curled herself into the crook of his arm and rested her head under his chin. 

“There’s no pressure,” said Clint, grimacing at himself. 

Natasha let out a sudden laugh and looked up at him, then kissed him with a feather-light brush of her lips against his. 

“Exactly,” she whispered. 

Knowing that this was Natasha’s way of accepting Clint’s sentiments, he kissed her in return, wishing they could just stay here on this rainy morning a bit longer. But the day would age, the mission would await, and they would be back to who they were: not the people who lay in bed together on a rainy Sunday and read the paper, but the people who fought so everyone else could do just that.


	7. And anytime we need an alias, he likes using names from old Hitchcock films.

Getting all dressed up and going to a gala was one of the better parts of the spy life. It was nice to put on a pretty dress and have a glass of champagne and laugh with carefree strangers while mining for information sometimes rather than donning a tactical uniform and shedding blood or stealing secrets. Though the work itself was no less sensitive, Natasha always relished the feeling of just being normal, pretending to be out for a night on the town with the husband, able to take Clint’s arm in public and give him loving looks without it putting them at risk. Nearly every mission they took had them posing as a couple, but few allowed them to really act like one. 

Natasha stood in front of the bathroom mirror in a slip as she fixed her hair and makeup, feeling fresh and pretty for the first time in a while. They had been taking a lot of missions that required them to get dirty lately, so the notion of so much as running a brush through her hair had seemed laughable to Natasha for several weeks. A knock at the door alerted her to Clint’s presence, and he stood there in his tuxedo – minus the jacket – and held out an ID card to Natasha. 

“For your bag,” he said. 

“Thank you,” said Natasha, curious to see who she would be tonight. “Eve Kendall. I like that.”

“And I’m Roger Thornhill,” said Clint. 

“Oh, I didn’t take your name this time?”

“Absolutely not. You’re a modern woman.”

“You don’t look like a Roger to me,” Natasha teased. 

“Wait till I’m fully dressed. You’ll see it,” said Clint, nudging her with his elbow a little. He hopped up and sat on the bathroom counter. “Look at you.”

“What about me?”

“So polished. I kinda liked the caked-in-mud-and-sweat ensemble you’ve been working with lately.”

Natasha shuddered. “I probably still smell like petrol after that last drop.”

“Nah. You smell like…I don’t know. Something I can’t afford. Where’s the dress?”

Natasha pointed to where the dress hung behind the bathroom door. Clint peered at it and raised an eyebrow. 

“Is that a look of approval?” asked Natasha as she dabbed on some lipstick. 

“Uh, yes. Very much a yes. Wow. You realize we’re supposed to be blending in, right? No way you’re blending in if you’re wearing that.”

“Good. Then no one would suspect. Who’s going to wear a dress like that if they’re trying to spy?”

“Fair point.”

Natasha took the dress off its hanger and stepped into it, gesturing to Clint to do up the zipper. The dress was long and the color of red wine, and it fell off of Natasha’s shoulders in a flattering way. Clint looked at her for a long time as she applied the final touches, his face soft. Natasha caught his eye. 

“What?” she asked. 

“Nothing. Well, no, you look beautiful, but that’s not news. It’s just funny.”

“What?”

“Just with the names I picked, you going for the whole Rita Hayworth kind of thing tonight.”

“The what?”

“The Rita Hayworth. Gilda? Oh, come on. Tell me they have Gilda over in Russia.”

“I’m sure they do, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Clint groaned. “Nat, you’re killing me. First thing we do when we have some time off, I’m taking you on a cinematic history tour.”

“You never struck me as the type to watch those old black and white movies.”

“I grew up on a farm. Limited channels out there. They’d show those movies all the time and I just loved them. How do you think I always come up with our aliases so quick? You think the names John and Constance were just bouncing around in my head last time we needed new ones? Nah. Hitchcock, Romanoff. You need to be versed in Hitchcock, and quick.”

“I think I saw part of _Psycho_ once.”

Clint dropped his head and shook it. “An entire world of knowledge put in your head and they skipped decent movies.”

“Yes, their priorities were a little skewed, hmm?” said Natasha, the ghost of bitterness in her tone. Clint picked up on it, but said nothing, so Natasha changed the subject. “So, Roger, how long have we been married this time?”

“Two years today sounds pretty good to me, don’t you think?” said Clint, a little smile playing at his lips. 

Natasha stopped what she was doing as she realized what he was saying. Today’s date was the anniversary of the day he had pulled her from Minsk, rescued her from the punishment surely awaiting her if she had been found by her employers. Today was the anniversary of her second chance. She turned to Clint, who had jumped off of the counter and come to stand next to her. 

“Happy anniversary, Roger,” she said. 

“Happy anniversary, Eve,” Clint returned. 

And with a happy laugh, Clint offered his arm to Natasha, grabbed his coat, and led her out the door and into their new, temporary life.


	8. She has this spot on the back of her neck she likes me to rub.

Through the hail of bullets, Clint felt rather than heard the crash of the glass as he went through it along with Natasha. They weren’t too high up, thankfully, but it wasn’t exactly a soft landing. Clint had definitely sprained his ankle, probably cracked a rib or two, but he was mostly unscathed. Natasha, however, let out a sharp cry upon her landing, which she rarely did. Alarmed, Clint managed to roll to a standing position and help her up. They had to move. 

“Clint – I can’t…” Natasha panted. She looked deathly pale, and she grasped at her abdomen. “I can’t.”

Without hesitating, Clint scooped her into his arms and ran as fast as he could, ignoring the searing pain in his ankle. He got Natasha to their car and lay her in the backseat, then jumped into the driver’s seat and drove as though he were trying to get the car to take off and fly. When he felt certain they were out of danger, he yanked the car to the side of the rode and rushed to Natasha. 

“Okay. Nat. Show me. What’s wrong?” he asked urgently, trying to assess the damage. “Are you hit?”

“N-no, it’s…”

Natasha shifted a little to show Clint her stomach, and he saw the glint of a long shard of thick glass sticking out of it. His heart skipped a beat.

“Okay. It’s fine. It’s not that bad. It’s not. Keep pressure. There’s a hospital four miles away. Just hang in there and stay awake. You got that?” Clint demanded, a little more aggressively than he had intended. 

He didn’t wait for Natasha to respond. He just drove. He pressed the gas pedal as hard as he could, getting them to the hospital in record time. Natasha had managed to keep herself awake, but all of her strength was going to give out at any moment. Once again, Clint took her in his arms and carried her inside, flashing his SHIELD badge and barking orders at the hospital staff. They took Natasha from Clint and wheeled her away. 

“Sir, you have to stay here,” a nurse tried to tell Clint, blocking him from entering the room where the doctors surrounded Natasha. “Sir, you can’t go in there.”

Clint looked down at the nurse and spoke in a voice of deadly quiet. “Do not make me push you out of my way.”

The nurse hesitated, then he stepped out of Clint’s way and allowed him to stand in the doorway. He knew better than to go into the room and get in the way of the doctors, and he knew better than to speak without being spoken to. After the amount of time he had spent in hospitals, he had seen too many panicked loved ones hovering over doctor’s shoulders, getting in the way and shouting out to them, thinking they know better. It never helped. Clint focused on slowing his breathing, controlling his heartbeat, steadying his hands. If he thought too much about the last time he had been waiting on a loved one in a hospital, his chest would clench, but he couldn’t help the memories that crept in for just a moment. He suddenly felt like that scared little boy all over again. 

“Sir, we’re taking your partner up to surgery. Sir. Sir?”

Clint snapped back to the present when the nurse addressed him, and he stepped aside to allow the doctors to wheel a now-unconscious Natasha past him. 

“Yeah. Okay. Is she going to be okay?” Clint asked, staring after the gurney as it rolled down the shiny hall.

“She’s in really good hands,” said the nurse with a little smile. 

Clint tried to return it, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t still his mind, and the pain in his ribs and ankle were not making it easier to focus. He accepted the nurse’s offer to get checked out, figuring that at least it would give him something to do other than wait. He barely noticed as they poked and prodded at him, wrapping up his ribs – just a little crack after all, nothing serious – and convinced him to ice and elevate his sprained ankle before fitting him in a walking boot. He made his way back to the lobby and irritated everyone sitting there by pacing around, trying over and over to sit down but being unable to do so for more than two minutes at a time. Finally, a doctor approached Clint, and Clint hobbled over as quickly as he could. 

“She’s fine,” said the doctor immediately, and relief flooded Clint so quickly that he felt dizzy. “She’s resting now, but you can see her whenever you’re ready.”

“I’ve been ready. Take me to her,” said Clint. 

The doctor led Clint to Natasha’s room, where she was still sleeping. She looked small in the hospital bed, just a shock of red hair against white sheets, pillows, and skin, but she was there, and she was going to be all right. The doctor left them alone and Clint pulled up the chair to sit beside Natasha, reaching out and holding her arm since her hand was occupied by IVs and bandages. It took a long time for her to finally come around, but when she did, the first thing she did was smile at Clint to the best of her ability. 

“Hi,” Natasha croaked. 

“Hey there,” said Clint. “You did good.”

Natasha flicked her eyebrows up and let out a weak laugh, then groaned a little in pain. Clint shifted so that he could sit on the edge of the bed. He reached out and put his hand on the back of her neck, gently rubbing at the spot that always comforted Natasha in times of great stress. She closed her eyes and let out a little hum in response. They sat like that for a long time, silently thanking each other, silently loving each other.


	9. And sometimes he doesn’t want to talk, but it almost feels like we can have a whole conversation in silence.

Natasha and Clint sparred like dancers. They were perfectly matched, perfectly even, perfectly in tune with each other. They had lost count of the number of times they would be sparring together and find themselves surrounded by an audience of fellow SHIELD agents, all of whom would cheer them on, taking bets and taking notes, fascinated by this odd couple and their unlikely balance. They anticipated each other’s movements, knew strengths and weaknesses like they had been born with the knowledge. It had gotten to the point that scrapping with each other had become routine, almost boring, and they had to keep incorporating new elements in order to stay sharp. 

Following Natasha’s recovery, she and Clint had decided to go away for a few days to get back into fighting shape. A new environment would be good for both of them, not just because it would certainly be refreshing after several days in a hospital and a couple weeks at home, but because it would keep them on their toes. A little cottage on a beach during the off season sounded like heaven to Natasha, and Clint had been more than happy to arrange it. They wouldn’t be bothered there, and they wouldn’t alarm anyone with the sounds of fighting each other after sneak attacks at odd moments. 

In the car, they were any other couple. They listened to music, they held hands, they enjoyed a few moments of normal living before arriving at their destination. The weekend was going to be overcast and chilly, and Natasha breathed the crisp, salty air as she stepped out of the car. Clint grinned at her. 

“It’s beautiful,” he agreed with her. 

The day progressed almost painfully ordinarily. They picked up groceries at the little market nearby. They had some coffee. They took a stroll by the water until they shivered from the mist. It felt good to take things so slowly, to just enjoy being away for a while, but Natasha knew not to drop her guard entirely. Clint might decide to test her by snapping into action at any second, and she might decide to do the same. Though they smiled at each other and walked hand-in-hand, both were calculating the best ways to trip the other up and get the advantage. 

It was Clint who first decided to break the illusion of this being a vacation. While Natasha sliced some bread for their lunch, he snuck up behind her and grabbed her around the shoulders. She managed to jump up and push off from the counter, sending them both crashing to the floor with Clint underneath her. With the wind knocked out of him like that, Natasha easily whipped around to straddle him and held the knife to his neck with a little smile. 

“You’re dead,” she said playfully. 

“This time,” said Clint. “I’ve got tricks up my sleeve you haven’t even seen yet, Romanoff.”

“You think you’re alone in that?”

Clint raised an eyebrow and Natasha returned the expression, then she rolled off of Clint and helped him up. They ate their lunch as though nothing had happened. 

***

Natasha was the next to attack. Clint had just taken a shower and was still in a towel when she came around the corner and swung at him. She managed to get in one good hit, but he had clearly anticipated that she might come at him, because he caught the second punch before it could land and used the force of it to knock Natasha off of her balance. He pinned her against the wall, and she lifted a leg to push him back. He stumbled, but not as much as she had expected, and this time Natasha was the one who wound up flat on her back on the floor, Clint’s hand around her neck. 

“Okay,” Natasha relented. “I’ll give you that one.”

“Damn right,” said Clint, and he moved his hand from her throat to her cheek, kissing her. 

With a devilish grin, Natasha whipped off his towel, and Clint shivered, letting out an involuntary whooping noise.

“It’s freezing in here. Warn a guy before you do something like that.”

Natasha just kissed him in response. 

***  
It was the middle of the night before they fought for the third time since arriving at the cottage. Natasha woke to find that Clint wasn’t in the bed, and she silently rolled out to go and find him. She pulled on a sweater before moving like a whisper down the hallway, seeing the light of the refrigerator reflected in the wood floor. Clint would be standing in front of it, trying to decide on a midnight snack. It would be all too easy to sneak up on him. He wouldn’t be expecting her to come after him twice in a row, and for all he knew, she was sleeping soundly. It was the perfect moment to break their tie. 

Natasha snuck up until she was mere inches from Clint without him realizing. In one fluid motion, she grabbed him around the neck and wrestled him to the ground. He let out a cry of shock that was cut short as he hit the floor. Something felt strange about this to Natasha. She knew Clint would be thrown off, but he almost always snapped right into defense mode no matter how much of a surprise an attack came by. He must have been half-asleep when Natasha jumped at him. 

_Well_ , Natasha thought. _That’s not my problem. Prepare to beg for best of five, Barton._

Clint tried to crawl out from under Natasha’s legs, but she held tight to him. He managed to turn over so that he lay face up just as Natasha reared back, raising a fist. As she did, Clint flinched and blocked his face with his hands. 

Natasha froze. Clint did a lot of odd and surprising things when they sparred, but he never flinched. She lowered her arm and stared at the man who lay at her mercy, now cowering like a child and panting, his hands shaking. They locked eyes, both horrified at each other, both trying to understand what had just happened. Clint’s eyes were too bright, wetness glinting in them in the illumination from the refrigerator light. Natasha scrambled to move off of him and back away, giving him room to breathe. It took Clint a while to calm himself enough to sit up, rubbing his face. 

“Clint…” said Natasha, unsure what else to say. 

Clint didn’t look at her. He stood and walked out the door, robotic and locked away. Natasha wasn’t sure whether or not to follow him, but after a while decided it might be best to at least take him a jacket if he planned on staying outside for much longer. She grabbed his from the dining table and stepped outside, careful to make plenty of noise to avoid startling Clint a second time. Clint stood on the little porch, leaning on the railing and staring out at the sea. Natasha held out the jacket, and Clint took it, unable to meet her eyes. 

“Thanks,” he mumbled, and after a moment, he spoke again. “Sorry.”

“No,” said Natasha quickly. “No, I’m sorry. That was on me. It wasn’t fair.”

“I slipped up. It won’t happen again. I was just in a zone and I shouldn’t have been.”

Natasha had to ask. “Are you all right?"

Clint hesitated, still not looking at Natasha, and he seemed to be warring with himself. Finally, he shook his head and put an arm around Natasha to keep her warm. 

“If it’s okay,” said Clint slowly. “I don’t want to get into it right now.”

Natasha nodded. She leaned into him and he wrapped his other arm around her, and she pressed her head so that she could listen to his heartbeat. It had slowed enough that she no longer worried about him. He let out a deep sigh, exhaling what looked like decades of weight as he did, holding Natasha even closer and allowing her to take on a little of whatever it was that had set him off that night. 

Though they did not speak again for the rest of the night, Clint woke the next morning with a lightness in his eyes that Natasha had not realized had been missing for the past few weeks.


	10. And she particularly enjoys candlelight.

Their missions didn’t usually go south. Clint and Natasha were so good at what they did, so in tune with each other, that failure was a rarity to them. They had both forgotten the way it felt to be unsuccessful, and when it turned out the man they were supposed to bring in to SHIELD was far better prepared than they had anticipated, it took both of them a while to process it. They made it out relatively unscathed, just bumps and bruises, but it was that sickening feeling of a botched mission that caused the real pain.

They were quiet on the way back home. Clint kept replaying the events over and over again, trying to figure out the exact second they slipped up, but he just couldn’t see anything wrong with what they had done. They had played every moment flawlessly, just as they had planned, just as they had done hundreds of times before. Clint looked over at Natasha as he drove. She looked out, watching the lights reflected in the little droplets of water on the window, her face calm and thoughtful. 

“Hungry?” asked Clint, and Natasha shrugged. 

Clint was ravenous, so he pulled over and stopped into a Greek restaurant they both liked to grab some takeout. He must have looked about as good as he felt, because the nice daughter of the owners threw in some baklava on the house. Clint passed a piece over to Natasha when he got back in the car, and she took it with a little smile. 

Natasha’s apartment was sparse and simple, no decorations or attempt to make it a real home. It revealed little about the beautiful mystery of a woman living there, which Clint knew was deliberate. For a long time now, the weight of Natasha’s past had been pressing on her. She spoke often of atoning for past sins and missions, of making up for what she had done before. Clint wished she could see that she was not entirely responsible for who she was before they had met, but Natasha wouldn’t hear it when he tried to tell her that she was guiltless. Of course, he understood the feeling well, given his own shady background, and he wouldn’t deny her whatever she needed to move on. Her need to truly start over, to wash away her history, was reflected in every corner of her dwelling.

They sat on the couch, eating out of Styrofoam containers, looking wildly out of place in the pristine studio in their outfits that were half-tactical, half-street clothes, covered in scratches and bruises and grime. Natasha’s own shirt had been ripped, so she wore Clint’s t-shirt, swimming in it a little but looking as close to “cute” as a deadly spy could get. She stretched out on the sofa once she had eaten her fill, her legs over Clint’s lap. Clint looked at her, not having to ask aloud if she was all right. 

“I’m fine,” Natasha responded to the silent question. “I’m just…”

Clint put down his food and turned to Natasha to prompt her to continue. 

“Each time I let one of the bad guys go, I remember who I used to work for,” she said quietly. 

“You didn’t let anyone go, Nat.”

“No, I mean – I don’t know what I mean.”

“I think I do,” said Clint.

They looked at each other for a long moment, then Natasha rolled off of the sofa and flicked off the harsh overhead light in favor of lighting a few candles – a rare indulgence she allowed herself in this place. Clint saw her whole body relax at the sight of the candlelight, and he hoped it was a sign that she was forgiving herself a little more.


	11. But he can always make me smile, even when I don’t want to, and I always find myself doing the same for him.

“You’re grouchy.”

It wasn’t a question. Clint looked over at Natasha who was being uncharacteristically grumpy, slouching in the passenger side of the car and staring out the window, glaring at the passing trees as though they had personally offended her. Natasha turned her scowl to Clint, whose good-natured grin was not the thing she wanted to see at the moment. 

“You deal with Tony Stark for more than fifteen minutes and tell me the state of your mood,” Natasha grumbled at Clint, who for some reason only smiled wider. 

“He seems like he’d be a pain.”

“He is.”

“But you were successful, right?”

“Sure.”

“So what’s the problem?”

Natasha shrugged. “This isn’t really current grumpiness. It’s like a grumpiness hangover.”

Clint laughed at that and fiddled with the radio. Some dreadful country song came on and he grimaced at first, but then started singing along with fake enthusiasm and a painfully exaggerated accent. Natasha groaned, covering her ears, but that only spurred Clint on to raise his voice. He didn’t quit until Natasha started laughing, laughing harder than she had laughed in a while. Her fake giggles while investigating Stark didn’t count. After a minute of this, Natasha slapped the volume on the radio to put an end to the terrible music. 

“Aww,” said Clint with an exaggerated pout. 

“Enough’s enough, Barton,” said Natasha, still laughing. “And I was having such a good mope, too.”

“Not on my watch,” said Clint, giving Natasha a little nudge. 

They smiled at each other, the rest of the ride a silent comfort.


	12. And she likes to dance, but not when anyone is watching.

They were bloody and bruised and aching everywhere, but they were alive, and that was all that mattered. Clint’s left ankle was swollen and purple, one of the worst sprains he had ever had, and he had to lean on Natasha in order to get up the stairs to his apartment. He hated to use her like a literal crutch, but it was either that or crawling, and he knew which one he preferred. Once inside, Clint reluctantly allowed Natasha to coddle him a bit, helping him to elevate his leg and put some ice on it, bringing him some water, and sitting with him quietly for a bit. 

“Weird day,” Clint murmured after a while. 

Natasha nodded. She kept looking at him carefully, free from suspicion but full of concern. After Clint’s bout with mind control at the hand of Thor’s brother, a bout which included Clint trying his very best to murder Natasha, he wouldn’t have blamed her for being a little bit afraid of him. But this was Natasha, and she always seemed to know things that no one else knew. Clint knew he probably wasn’t completely out of the woods, that it would take him a while to level out and really be free from Loki’s clutches, but he felt a lot more secure knowing that Natasha would be nearby. 

Before long, Clint’s body felt like it was going to give out. He hadn’t slept in – he couldn’t actually remember the last time he had any sleep. Things were such a blur. He felt sick and more exhausted than he ever remembered. He had caught sight of his reflection earlier and been shocked by his appearance, by the dark circles under his eyes, the way they were rimmed in red, and by how unnaturally pale he looked after sustaining so many injuries. Natasha picked up on how tired he was. 

“Do you want to just sleep out here?” she asked, clearly thinking of his leg. 

Clint nodded. “Yeah. That’s fine.”

He was fading fast. He could barely get the words out before he felt his head drooping back onto the couch cushion. He vaguely registered a blanket being pulled over him before falling into a heavy, mercifully dreamless sleep. 

Clint didn’t know how long he slept, but it was long enough that he felt stiff and disoriented upon waking. It felt strange to be in his apartment, and it didn’t really feel like his anymore. It felt like a place that belonged to someone else, like somewhere he had been housesitting for a long time. He got up slowly and quietly, blinking in the dark. He checked the clock in his kitchen – it was just before sunrise. He set about making coffee, wincing every time he put any weight on his injured leg. While he waited for it to brew, he hobbled over to his window and stared out, looking at the quiet Brooklyn street. His neighborhood had been untouched by the invasion, and looking at the seemingly-normal street, it only reinforced the fact that yesterday felt like it had happened to someone else. 

The sound of quiet music got Clint’s attention. It was coming from his bedroom. He walked over quietly, moving like a shadow, peeking through his cracked door to see Natasha. She had turned on Clint’s clock radio to a classical station. Clint didn’t recognize the music, but Natasha’s eyes were closed as though she could feel the orchestra before her. A look came over her face that Clint did not recognize, similar to the way she got on a rainy day, but tinged with something else. Clint thought that maybe he should stop peering in at her, but a moment later found that he was unable to look away. A moment later, Natasha suddenly began to dance. 

Her eyes stayed closed, and she moved with a grace that made her look like magic. Clint’s knowledge of ballet was admittedly lacking, but he knew talent when he saw it, and Natasha moved as beautifully as any professional dancer. She wore a pair of Clint’s sweatpants and his t-shirt, her hair piled up on top of her head in a sloppy mess of curls, and Clint thought he had never seen anything so lovely. Something in his heart stirred as he watched, realizing that he was seeing a part of Natasha that even in their years as partners he had never been privy to. His coffee pot sputtered a bit and he moved as quickly as he could on his hurt foot, rushing to stop it before it spoiled Natasha’s moment of peace, but it was too late. The music had turned off, and he heard Natasha behind him, walking up as though nothing had happened. 

“Are you doing all right?” she asked. 

Clint didn’t answer her right away. He looked at her, looking so casual and comfortable in his pajamas, holding the coffee he offered in both of her hands, and he felt that he was home after all. 

“Yeah,” said Clint. “I’m doing fine.”


	13. Most of all, he likes me to hold him when he is in pain.

Natasha rarely moved so fast when she was off-mission. Part of the reason she had earned the code name Black Widow was because she could exist in near-absolute stillness just before snapping into action. She could weave her delicate web, drawing in an enemy with enticing grace, and then moving so quickly that she was just a blur of black and white and red. That was the Natasha of legend, the Natasha to be feared. 

This Natasha, moving at breakneck speed through a hospital hallway, was the Natasha that few ever saw. This was the Natasha whose heart felt like it might burst out of her chest, who fought to keep her composure as she demanded to know where her partner was, who ran a hand through messy red hair and tied it away from her neck as she waited to find out his room number. 

Natasha had been away for almost a month, on an unusually mundane mission, and her day had begun so slowly and normally that she could never have predicted that just six hours later she would be fighting to calm herself in a glossy hospital corridor. She had boarded the plane to come home and started to occupy herself with a book, relaxing, looking forward to getting home and being reunited with Clint. Halfway through her flight, she had received a series of text messages alerting her to the fact that Clint had been rushed to the hospital after being seriously injured. Her mind had gone blank, her vision slightly tunneled as she stared at her phone. Words swam before her – “arrows”, “ears”, “surgery”, “unconscious” – but she couldn’t connect them into anything that made sense. She felt utterly helpless there on the plane, a feeling almost foreign to her, and she completely abandoned her luggage in favor of getting a cab as quickly as possible. 

Now, standing just outside Clint’s room, she took a moment to steel herself before entering. He was awake and very still, staring off into space at the far wall. His head was bandaged and he looked exhausted and battered. He didn’t notice Natasha when she walked in. She moved very slowly so as not to startle him, and when she got close enough to be in his line of vision, carefully waved a little bit. Clint’s eyes went to her face, but he hardly seemed to see her. He vaguely gestured to his ear, and Natasha nodded. She saw a large pad and pen on the table by the bed, and she picked it up and started to write. 

_Will you be okay?_

Clint shrugged and started to say something, but he was speaking far too quietly. Natasha squinted and leaned forward, trying to hear him. Clint sighed and took the paper from her, clamming up immediately. 

_I can’t hear myself. They say I’ll be okay._

He looked as though just writing that took the wind out of him. 

_What happened?_ Natasha wrote back. 

Clint shook his head, then let out a heartbreaking groan as he slumped back against his pillow. Natasha rushed forward. Clint was panting a little, his face screwed up against pain. Natasha hit the call button to summon anyone qualified to administer pain medication and put a careful hand on Clint’s shoulder. He put his hand over hers. Once he had a little more medication and some water, he was ready to communicate again. Natasha handed him the pad, pointing to her previous question. Clint wrote:

_Things went south. Guy had my arrows and snuck up on me. Deaf. Permanent._

Natasha stared at the words on the paper for a long time before setting it down and moving to sit on the bed. Clint took a long time to look at her, but when he did, it was with eyes that were soft rather than sharp. For a moment, Natasha could see the little blond boy he once was, with big, scared eyes, and it wrenched at her heart terribly. She fought back tears, not wanting to put the attention on herself, and Clint reached out to rub that spot on the back of her neck that always made her feel better. Natasha picked up the pad and wrote. 

_What can I do for you?_

A small, sad half-smile flickered across Clint’s mouth, just for a moment, and he opened his arms for Natasha. She carefully slid across the sheets and leaned into Clint, holding onto him at once tightly and gently. She held him as though she might never let him go.


	14. And when she is feeling tired and down, she likes to lay her head in my lap.

Clint worried. 

Usually, Clint didn’t worry. He knew Natasha was more than capable of completing a mission, but most of her solo missions since joining SHIELD had been pretty basic. In and out, simple intel gathering, easy undercover identities, that sort of thing. The more dangerous stuff had been reserved for when the two could go together. They were so indisputably a team that it just never made sense to split them up for the bigger, more complicated missions. Now, however, things were different. Clint was still adjusting to his new situation, still learning how to function without his hearing. He had been in recovery for a long time, regaining his balance and getting his bearings, then moved to desk duty, then the most basic tasks, and was only just now starting to get back out into the field – and even then, things weren’t exactly high-level. This was the kind of stuff Clint could have managed back when he was touring with the circus as a trick archer and wearing an ill-advised bright purple costume. 

It was frustrating. Intellectually, Clint knew this was for the best and that he shouldn’t push himself, but Clint wasn’t great at letting his intellect call the shots as often as it should. He found himself spending more and more time at the range, sending arrows flying over and over until he had worked out whatever it was he was feeling, at least for a short time. Tonight, Clint was feeling worry. Worry made his shooting slow, more deliberate, not like the rapid-fire sideshow brought on by anger or the trick patterns that accompanied joy. Clint aimed each arrow carefully, like a hunter, not letting it fly until he knew for certain that it would hit its mark. If he could control nothing else, he could control his aim. 

Natasha had been assigned to somewhere just outside of Tehran, infiltrating and shutting down a branch of an enormous, worldwide crime ring. It was the kind of mission that Clint would have accompanied her on, armed to the teeth with every kind of arrow he had and then some, serving as her sniper backup and taking the lead when needed. Clint had not seen or spoken to Natasha in over three weeks, and his mind kept wandering to where she might be, what she might be doing, and the sort of trouble she was likely to get herself into over there. And he worried. 

The walk home didn’t clear his mind. There was still something so strange about moving through the streets of New York City and not hearing them. Clint had hearing aids, but tonight, he wanted quiet. Once he was home, he took a while to settle in. He changed into pajamas, splashed some water on his face, and threw open a window to let in a little night air. He had just set about throwing something together for some dinner when he felt three rapid vibrations in the floor – someone stomping to get his attention. He whirled around, confused as to who could be there, but dropped everything he held when he saw Natasha at his open front door. 

She looked terrible. It wasn’t like Clint had never seen her beaten up before, but this was the first time she really looked _beaten_ to him. Her hair was lank and dirty, pulled sloppily under a hat, and she was clearly dehydrated and sleep-deprived. She had a black eye that looked to be a couple of days old, and almost every bit of exposed skin looked to have a bump or bruise of some kind. Clint rushed over to her just as she swayed a little and leaned against his door. 

“Whoa,” said Clint softly. He caught Natasha and led her over to the couch, closing the door with his foot as he did. “Easy. Hang on.”

Clint helped Natasha ease onto the sofa and put her feet up on the coffee table. He could tell she had lost some weight since he last saw her. He put in his hearing aids and turned them on, distorted and muffled sound rushing back to him.

“What happened, Nat?”

Natasha took a deep breath. “Mission was successful. Did what needed to be done. But I was slow getting out. I was stupid.”

Clint reaches into his bag by the sofa and pulls out a water bottle, opening it and passing it to her. Natasha drinks gratefully. 

“Thanks,” she mumbled. 

“Are you hurt?” asked Clint. 

“Yeah,” said Natasha. “But I’m okay.”

“Natasha.”

“I am.”

“You don’t look okay.”

“How sweet.”

“ _Natasha.”_

_“Clint.”_

Clint dropped it. He left Natasha to get some painkillers, which she didn’t fight, and offered her some food. She only picked at it, and Clint still wondered if he ought to insist on taking her to a hospital just in case. 

“Do they even know you’re back?” Clint asked. 

Natasha shook her head. Something was wrong. Clint could tell. 

“Nat, just tell me what happened.”

She took a deep breath and moved so that Clint could sit beside her on the sofa. Clint took the space she offered, and Natasha lay down so that her head was in Clint’s lap. He pulled the hat off of her head and stroked her hair, smoothing it away from her forehead. 

“Got caught on my way out,” Natasha muttered, half to herself. “Held there for a few days. They got lazy, and I found an escape route. I just ran my way back into the city and came straight home as soon as I could.”

Clint listened carefully, stricken but not showing it. No wonder she looked so bad. 

“Get some rest,” said Clint softly. There would be time to deal with everything else in the morning. “I’ll be right here.”

Natasha nodded and closed her eyes. She was fast asleep in under a minute, drifting off to the rhythm of Clint’s hands gently petting at her hair well into the night.


	15. But no matter how much pain he is in, he will always do what he can to take away mine.

Even after all their time together, Clint still had a few tricks up his sleeve, a few secrets he hadn’t told. One of those secrets was the fact that he had a farm stashed away in northeast Iowa. Natasha had looked at him like he had a second head when he suggested they lay low there for a while after the fall of SHIELD, and she had initially had her doubts about the flat, yellow landscape of the Midwest. They had gone through the old house quietly on that first day, dusting and sweeping and shaking out rugs and curtains, keeping their minds and hands busy to keep from thinking about the state of the world as it currently stood. 

The first night out on the farm was a strange one. Natasha found that she had a hard time falling and staying asleep, as she couldn’t quite turn her brain off. Her new reality, the fact that she had never really gone over to the good side, that all of her attempts to right her past wrongs had been in vain…it was all too much, even for her exhausted mind. She faded in and out of light sleep and upsetting dreams until she finally gave up trying. Clint wasn’t in the bed – he must not have been able to sleep either. 

Natasha rolled out of the bed and went over to the window. The house had low ceilings and old curtains, and Natasha couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she had gone back in time. She gazed out over the land, past the overgrown lawn that Clint had mumbled some promise about mowing the day before and out at the horizon. The day was shaping up to be dim and overcast, a strong breeze turning over the leaves that remained in the trees. It gave the land a surprising kind of beauty, like something out of a Gothic novel. 

Images of Wuthering Heights dancing in her head, Natasha stretched and started to make her way out of the bedroom. She glanced down the narrow hallway and saw Clint standing in the doorway of a room she hadn’t seen yet. His arms were crossed as he leaned against the frame, his face hard to read. Natasha walked up, intending to give him a little hug as a greeting, but when she touched him, he jumped as though he had been burned. 

“Sorry, sorry,” said Natasha in a rush as Clint looked down at her, panting a little. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew I was there.”

Clint held up a finger to indicate that he needed a moment, and he reached into his pocket and took out his hearing aids. Natasha felt terrible – of course he hadn’t realized she was there. Though she had gotten used to most of the adjustments that came with Clint’s deafness, there were still moments when the little courtesies slipped her mind. Still, though, Clint’s reaction surprised her. There had only been one time in all the years she had known him when he had jumped like that, back when she had snuck up on him in the kitchen of a beach cottage and seen him cower on the floor. The look on his face now was the same. 

“I’m sorry,” said Natasha again. “Are you okay?”

Clint looked at her for a long moment, as though trying to make up his mind about something. He took a deep breath and held out his hand to her. 

“Come here,” he muttered, and he led her into the room. 

It was small, dusty and neglected, with blue wallpaper that had faded in places. Clint opened the narrow closet and pulled down a little photo album, wiping dust off the cover with his sleeve as he did. He passed it to Natasha, and she opened it curiously. 

The first few pages showed a pretty, young blonde woman with her husband, a powerfully-built man with auburn hair and an almost overly charming smile, like he was posing for a magazine. A few pages later, and the couple held a little boy who looked a lot like his father. Natasha didn’t understand, and she looked at Clint for an explanation. He didn’t speak one aloud, but he flipped to a specific page. There was a photo of the mother holding a new baby, beaming at the camera, while the older boy kissed the baby on the head. Clint pointed to the baby. 

“That’s me,” he said quietly. 

Natasha looked from the photo to Clint and back, and suddenly the resemblance between Clint and his mother hit her like a ton of bricks. Their hair color was identical, and they had the same eye shape. Natasha realized that the background of the photograph was the living room of this very house. 

“So, this is…you grew up here,” said Natasha. 

Clint nodded. “Yeah.”

Natasha kept flipping, seeing Clint and his older brother grow from an adorable, chubby blond infant and auburn-haired toddler to scrawny children. As she looked at the photos, Natasha noticed that the mother no longer appeared in them, and that the smiles had vanished from the faces of the boys. The album ended abruptly halfway through, with a photograph of Clint at about five years old, holding his brother’s hand on what looked to be the first day of school. The brother looked sullen and appeared to have a healing black eye, while Clint looked sad, with big blue eyes looking at the camera helplessly. Clint took the album and closed it. 

“My parents died right after that,” said Clint. “Car crash. Dad was drunk.”

Natasha fell silent, watching Clint look around the room for a moment. He pointed to one side. 

“My bed was right there,” he said. “Barney – that’s my brother – he was over on the other side. We used to try to jump from one bed to the other without falling. He was better at it than me. And right there, I had this train set that I broke when I was three. My mom got it for me, and I loved that thing, but for some reason I got it into my head that I should try to walk on the tracks like a balance beam. I can’t remember how it broke, but it did, and I was a wreck. Mom tried to fix it, but…well. Anyway. Dad didn’t like that. It was the first time he came after me.”

Clint looked at Natasha, then glanced around the room again. He walked over to the closet and put the photo album away, closing the door with a long, slow breath. 

“Sometimes I get to thinking about this stuff, and I just go to some place in my head. It doesn’t happen very often, it’s just now and then…but being back here again, it just brings it back to me full force.”

Natasha thought back to the picture of that sweet-faced little boy Clint was before the little crooked, childlike smiles had begun to disappear, and it broke her heart in one violent shatter. She felt an ache when she thought about this man who had not only given her a second chance, but had stuck by her right from the start and every moment since. Clint was a lot of things, and there were days when he was infuriatingly stubborn and petty, but it could never be argued that he was not a fiercely loyal man, someone who always tried to be the good and see the good in the world and in others. To think someone like him came from a household like that…

“Hey, none of that,” said Clint now, with a little shake of his head as he saw the look on Natasha’s face. “It’s fine. It’s in the past. It’s done. Just…maybe don’t sneak up on me anymore, okay?”

He was smiling, trying to get Natasha to return it, but she can’t bring herself to. Clint wrapped his arms around her, rubbing her back for a moment. 

“I hate to see you down like that,” said Clint. 

Natasha felt terrible. Here was Clint, baring a deeply private part of his soul to her, telling her about some of the most painful memories he had, and now he was comforting her. It should have been the other way around, and Natasha was about to tell him just that when he spoke again. 

“I know you get where I’m coming from.”

Of course. Clint knew all about Natasha’s history, about what she endured as a girl, but those abuses were at the hands of people who went from abductors to employers, not those who were supposed to love and protect her. It wasn’t the same. 

“Clint…”

“It’s okay.”

Clint wanted to drop the subject, and Natasha let him. As they drifted through the rest of their day, again taking their time fixing things up, Natasha would occasionally glance over and see just a hint of the little boy Clint used to be. She wondered if he was as proud of the man he had become as she was.


	16. And she sings Russian songs, and I don’t understand them but I still love to listen.

The notion of the thrillingly beautiful ex-KGB assassin working happily in an herb garden seemed laughable at first, but as the days passed and Clint and Natasha continued their task of whipping the old Barton house into shape, Clint saw a kind of peace and calm come over Natasha that he had not seen in a long time. There was something about spending so much time outside, working on tasks that had nothing to do with missions or SHIELD or the Avengers or anything like it, something that brought them both back down to earth in a way they had desperately needed for years. 

Clint had been attempting to remember what he could about working a farm. It had been quite a while – not since he was a little boy – but between what seemed like muscle memory and a few books he had picked up in town, things were coming along. With each passing hour, the house began to feel more like a home and less like the place that had trapped so many hard memories all those years ago. Clint would go out to the slowly-evolving vegetable garden every morning and work to shape it into something functional, he would work to organize abandoned equipment and clean up the small buildings that peppered the land, anything to start shaping this place into somewhere that felt right. 

It was late afternoon by the time Clint allowed himself a real break, and he sat on the railing of the porch, picking a little at the peeling paint and reliving a rare happy memory of chasing Barney around the yard. He looked over to the little herb garden that Natasha had made into her pet project and saw her there, her hair positively blazing in the orange afternoon light. Clint made his way over to see if she needed help with anything. Natasha knelt in the patch of soil, slowly and gently working the earth, and Clint saw her mouth moving before he was close enough to hear her. She was singing. 

Natasha almost never sang, but when she did, Clint had always loved to listen. She had a soft voice, much sweeter than expected, and almost everything she sang sounded like a lullaby to Clint. He spoke less Russian than he ought to, so he never understood many of the lyrics, and now that he had trouble with his hearing, he understood even less. It didn’t matter. Natasha smiled at Clint as he approached, and she kept singing, raising her volume a little for his benefit. Clint sat beside her, pointing at the garden to ask if she needed help, but she shook her head and kept singing through a smile. 

As she sang, Clint looked around, and he thought that even though he had a lot to work through out here, even though the world hung on by a thread, even though their lives could never just settle…as long as Natasha stayed by his side, things would be fine in the end.


End file.
